


we are not together here

by yunmin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exploration, Extra Treat, Figuring Things Out, Friends to Lovers, Legends Canon, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-01 00:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12693240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunmin/pseuds/yunmin
Summary: They are friends, wing-mates, partners, all three of them; the duty of Rogue Squadron, the legacy of all that has gone before weighs on their shoulders. It only makes sense for them to draw strength from each other.





	we are not together here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancslove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancslove/gifts).



Wedge knows that Tycho survived.

He saw him escape the Death Star’s shadow, but it somehow doesn't really sink in until they’ve both landed on Endor. Stripping helmet and gloves and life support, Wedge vaults out of his X-Wing with well practised ease and finds Tycho already waiting for him. He falls into the other man’s embrace easy as anything, pushed back against the fuselage of his X-Wing. He breathes in deep, swearing he can smell the adrenaline that’s still coming off them both in waves.

“Stars,” Wedge hears Tycho murmur, lips dragging over Wedge’s neck as he talks, and Wedge clutches Tycho tighter. He doesn’t want to ever let his friend go again, knowing from the terror that he felt whilst they were all on the Death Star run that his feelings for Tycho run far beyond friendship.

“I know Tych, I know,” Wedge responds, turning his head into Tycho’s hair and resolving to not move any time soon.

Later in the evening, Wedge waits for Luke to emerge. He too, draws Wedge into an embrace. It’s not as desperate, but Wedge can still feel the warmth of Luke’s body close to his, and the desire to keep him there.

Nothing in Wedge’s life is ever simple.

.

“He can’t—” Tycho says, when Wedge tells him that Luke’s resigned as commander of Rogue Squadron, resigned his entire commission in fact. “Wedge, he can’t, what in the blazes is going on with him?”

Wedge sags and sighs and collapses against the bulkhead. He feels the weight of the task that Luke’s placed on his shoulders keenly. “I don’t know. Haven’t known for months, you know that.” Wedge and Luke were once perfectly in sync, the perfect partnership, perfect wing-mates. Ever since the Battle of Hoth, it’s not been right. Luke is keeping secrets, he’s changed.

“Well I’m bloody going to go and ask him!” Tycho is insistent on the point.

Wedge dashes after Tycho. He’s less of a hot-head than he used to be, but his impulsivity still gets the best of him every so often, and this is one of those times. It’s too late to say that the entire endeavour is pointless; Bakura proved that even if Luke was staying, the military wanted their prize Jedi out of the cockpit of a Starfighter and into the bridge of a capital ship.

Luke is still standing in the hangar, talking to R2D2 about various amendments to his X-Wing, when Tycho grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him back against the wall. Wedge grimaces as he hears Luke’s bones crack with the force of it. Wedge wasn’t the only one needing extensive Bacta treatment in the aftermath of Endor. “What the hell, Skywalker?”

Luke glances over Tycho’s shoulder, looking to Wedge for guidance. “Careful, Tych,” Wedge says. Tycho loosens his hold slightly. “Luke, just help us out a little,” Wedge asks. “It’s not just Tycho, you’ll have Wes and Hobbie down here once I tell them, you’ve got to give us something to why you’re leaving.”

Wedge thinks he understands Luke’s reasons – the ones on the surface – perfectly. He doesn’t agree with them. But he also can’t quite cast off the thought that there’s something more going on.

“What’s been going on with you all these months?” Tycho demands to know. “Come on, boss.”

“Not your boss any more,” Luke replies. He straightens, tugs a hand through hair that is much neater than it once was. “Okay, okay, I owe you both more of an explanation than I’ve given you. But not here.”

.

The three of them pile up on Wedge’s bunk, Luke sandwiched inbetween Wedge and Tycho as he tells the whole sorry tale. It’s cosy and intimate, the anathema to the story that Luke is telling.

Tycho’s reaction is to deny the whole thing. He rises up to do so, but a hand to his wrist stops him. Wedge’s hand, calloused fingers forming a gentle grip as Luke falls against Wedge’s chest. “Oh Luke,” Wedge says, a hand cradling Luke’s head. “You could have told us.”

“How?” Luke’s voice breaks. “I didn’t, I wasn’t, I—” He sobs against Wedge. “He came back to the light Wedge, I knew it was left in him, but he’s done so many awful things as well.”

“Our past does not define our legacy,” Tycho quotes.

Luke looks up. “That’s what Leia said. Is it—”

“Her father used to say it,” Tycho answers.

“Her father—” Luke ducks his head. He’s leaning against Wedge, a solid weight against Wedge’s chest, whilst Wedge’s hands circle around his back. “Oh, if only.” He clutches his hands in Wedge’s shirt, tugging in desperation. “Force, if only it were that simple.”

Tycho and Wedge exchange confused looks. “What are you talking about, Luke?” Wedge probes gently.

Tycho’s mind is already working away. “She was adopted, the princess was adopted,” Tycho says in a desperate breath, as the pieces slot into place. “Bail Organa brought back an orphan girl, and Naboo buried their pregnant former queen on the same day, and there were always rumours…”

“Tycho??” Wedge’s brow is furrowed.

“Leia’s your sister,” Tycho says to Luke. “She’s your sister, isn’t she?” Luke sobs, and Wedge tightens his grip on the other man, moving a hand to stroke though Luke’s soft hair. “Oh, Luke. Does she know?”

“She knows,” Luke confirms.

It’s a burden and a half to bear. To be the children of Darth Vader, to find that a person you have loved and entrusted yourself with was your other half all along. It can’t have been easy, to adjust to this new version of reality, where your father was no longer Anakin Skywalker, Jedi hero, but Darth Vader, murderer of millions.

“It’s okay, Luke,” Wedge says. He eases Luke against him, and with Tycho’s help, the three of them end up lying in the bunk. Luke is sandwiched between them, encircled by the warmth of both of them, silently offering all of the comfort and support they have to give. They are a tangle of limbs. “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.”

.

The brass send Wedge on a victory tour, to shake hands and kiss babies. They send Tycho to Coruscant.

When they receive the assignments – well, Tycho volunteered for his – they joke that they don’t know which is worse; facing the public, the endless rounds of public relations and months spent in that awful dress uniform, or a trip to Coruscant, still under the gaze of Ysanne Isard.

When Tycho is captured, it doesn’t seem so funny anymore. Wedge mopes the rest of the way through his tour, bitterly accepting that this was the task he’d undertaken, all whilst composing battle plans in his head. And that’s if Tycho’s still alive; there’s a very good chance that he isn’t.

“I hate this,” Wedge confides to Luke, a rare evening when their paths have miraculously crossed. “I hate it.”

Luke tugs Wedge’s head into his lap. “I know. Just have a little faith. Tycho’s gotten himself out of worse scrapes, and he volunteered for this.”

Wedge remembers the night before he went, the desire to push Tycho against the wall of the pilots rec room and kiss him, until you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. He’d talked himself out of it, as he always did, telling himself that there was time enough for that later, after all of this.

And now all Wedge is is hurt. He should have told Tycho how he felt, how he’s been feeling for years, everything that wells up inside his chest when he looks over at the other man.

“I should have—” Wedge breathes out, then looks up at Luke. He should have done a lot of things. He pushes himself up with a hand on Luke’s thigh, a hand that is closer to Luke’s inner thigh than a friendly gesture, and decides that he should stop overthinking things. He kisses Luke, the way he should have kissed Tycho, leaving no ambiguity about the strength of his desire.

Luke responds.

This thing is easy, kissing Luke is easy, getting hands inside Luke’s clothing and working until they are both panting with pleasure is easy. Entwining themselves together in the aftermath is easy too, tucking themselves under the blankets, neither having any desire to leave the other.

The guilt starts to well up in Wedge’s chest. What is he doing in bed with Luke when he knows exactly how he feels about Tycho? “You’ll get him back,” Luke whispers, catching a glimpse of Wedge’s feelings. “And then you can work this out, Wedge. I’m here whenever you want me.”

That statement is a lie, Wedge knows that. Luke can’t be. But he means it, and if the Galaxy was a kinder place, then maybe Wedge could have it.

.

The New Republic has Tycho back for two weeks before they deign to tell Wedge about it, and a further week before they give him clearance to see him.

The man risked his life to do reconnaissance on Coruscant. He was captured and tortured by all accounts, and yet he still managed to escape and find his way back to them. And the New Republic rewards him by locking him up?

Wedge knows the danger of the Lusankya programme, knows the havoc it has already wreaked across the New Republic. He understands the need for caution. But how they can possibly think that Tycho could be turned, that he could be a danger to anyone?

He’s thin, that’s the first thing Wedge thinks. He’s too thin. There are dark circles under his eyes. He rises from the corner of his cell at the sound of someone entering, and even his gait is different.

A transparisteel partition separates them. A guard stays on watch. It’s hardly the reunion Wedge might have dreamt of. He approaches the partition. Tycho walks up to it as well. Wedge raises a hand, fingers resting on the glass. “Oh, Tycho,” he breathes. His friend is alive. That’s the only thing that really matters.

Tycho raises his hand to meet Wedge’s. They align, though they are still separated from the partition. “It’s okay Wedge,” Tycho replies, voice quiet.

“No, it’s not, they shouldn’t have you locked up like this!” Wedge protests. He means to go on, but the words don’t come. He collapses against the partition, head sunk against it, wishing desperately that he could collapse into Tycho’s arms right now, bring Tycho into his embrace somehow.

“It’s what it is. I knew the risks when I took the mission. This was always one of them.”

“I’m going to get you out,” Wedge says. He curls his hand into a fist, then raises it just slightly and lets it thud back onto the clear partition, a visible sign of his frustration. “Do you hear me? I’m not going to let them keep you here.”

“I never thought you would.”

.

“I just…”

Wedge loses track of what he’s going to say. Words are difficult these days. Maybe that’s why he’s spending so much time in the simulators, and pouring over recruitment applications, trying to find applicants suitable for a rebuilt Rogue Squadron.

Luke continues tracing circles across Wedge’s bare back. Their bare legs are entwined together under the sheet. Wedge really doesn’t quite understand how he started sleeping with Luke to try and deal with his feelings about Tycho, but this is hardly the first, or second time this has happened.

“You’re worried about him. It’s understandable.”

“Can’t you do something?” Wedge asks. He regrets the words as soon as he’s said them; it’s too much to ask of Luke. But Tycho is his friend too, and Luke’s word still carries a lot of weight. More than Wedge’s ever has.

Luke sighs. He moves his hand up to brush through Wedge’s fine hair, his thumb brushing the corner of Wedge’s jawline. “I’ve done what I can. As far as I can tell, Tycho shows no sign of any implanted trigger, any brainwashing, anything that would account for the Lusankya programming. But as command like to remind me, we haven’t yet found a single occurrence before their programming goes off, so I don’t really know what I’m looking for. Or if it’s even something that could be sensed with the force. As far as I’m concerned, he’s no threat to anyone. If it were up to me, I’d put him back on active duty. But it’s not.”

Wedge nods, a little stiff. “If it were up to me, he would be too. But apparently I’m no longer in his chain of command, and even if I were I wouldn’t have the authority to authorise it.” He brushes his hand across Luke’s chest. He feels safe here, entwined in Luke’s arms. “It’s making him miserable. I don’t like seeing him like this. All he wants to do is help. This war isn’t over yet.”

“I know.” Luke drops a kiss to Wedge’s forehead. “It’ll happen. You’ve just got to be patient.”

Wedge laughs. “That’s rich, coming from you Luke.” How many times had Wedge tried to stop Luke from charging head first into something, without thinking it through first? Not that Wedge had ever been much better about it. He’d been straight behind Luke, just as many times.

“You can manage it, love.” Luke leans in for a kiss. It distracts Wedge so thoroughly that he doesn’t have time to think about the endearment Luke used, though at some point Wedge knows that he really is going to have to work out how he feels.

.

“What do you mean he’s gone!”

Luke is at Wedge’s side, a hand around his arm, gently reminding him to stay calm. It has little effect.

“Tycho Celchu has been moved to general quarters under guard, sir.”

“Well where in general quarters is he? Which deck, which room?”

“Wedge.” Luke utters a warning.

Wedge, ready to shove the guard into the wall, backs off. But his face clearly displays his frustration over the entire affair. He taps one of his feet steadily, trying to expend some of his nervous energy.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” the guard responds. “I’m sorry sir. You’ll need to speak to someone superior.”

Wedge scowls violently. “Kriffing hells, this is ridiculous!” He storms off, in the direction of the offices of superior officers, in the hopes that he’ll be able to drag some answers out of one of them. Luke scurries after him. Wedge Antilles on the warpath is a dangerous thing.

.

It’s the next morning when Wedge finally manages to track Tycho down, and convince the guard standing outside the room that he has the authority to see Tycho. After an excruciating conversation, Wedge bangs on Tycho’s door, saying “It’s only me, Tych, it’s Wedge, let me in please.”

Luke hovers only a step behind Wedge. Watching his desperation plummet to new depths as he tries to secure Tycho’s freedom has been difficult to watch. Luke hopes this is only a temporary thing. It hurts to see Wedge this way, to see him hurt this much.

When Tycho opens the door, slightly befuddled, Wedge is on him in a moment. Luke slips in behind them, closing the door as Wedge barrels Tycho into the far wall and kisses him for all he’s worth. The kiss expresses months of pent up desperation and years of longing, and it looks like it comes as a complete surprise to Tycho. But his hands eventually settle round Wedge’s waist, and Luke can feel satisfaction and contentment rolling off both of them.

He wonders about slipping out of the room at that moment, leaving the two of them to settle things, but. He’s learnt enough about Wedge these past months to know that the man is not very good at expressing his feelings, left to his own devices, and having someone to push him in the right direction is beneficial. He’s also not a neutral party in this. He has feelings for Wedge, and he’s not exactly been happy about the way that Tycho’s been treated in all this. Knows enough about himself to know that he could develop feelings for Tycho is a stunningly short amount of time, if he was to give them room to grow, tend them the way he’s tended to the way he feels about Wedge.

So he stays.

He’s there when Wedge and Tycho break from each other. Watches as Tycho guides Wedge to sit on the bed, with a tender questioning touch. Tycho seems as lost for words as Wedge is, but they are both entranced by each other. Wedge can’t stop touching Tycho. He’s running his hands over Tycho’s skin, examining the man in a tactile way that he hasn’t been able to since Tycho returned, checking for new scars and signs of damage. “Stars,” Wedge says. “Stars, Tycho, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Wedge.” Tycho’s tone has the same reassuring quality to it that it’s had in every moment since he returned. It’s not quite whole, though. It hasn’t been throughout this process. Tycho’s concern for everyone around him is admirable, but he doesn’t need to bear that weight alone.

“You’re not,” Luke says. His voice is quiet, but it cuts through the room. Tycho whips his head up, seemingly unaware that Luke was even in the room. “That’s okay. I don’t think any of us are. I don’t think any of us have been okay in a long time.”

Luke walks over. He takes a seat beside Tycho. It reminds him of how they were, almost two years ago now – how has it been that long? – sitting on Wedge’s bunk, when he told them of who his father was. He looks up at Tycho, raises fingers to the other man’s cheek. There’s so much pain lurking behind the surface. He leans in, and places a chaste kiss to Tycho’s lips.

“What—” Tycho furrows his brow. “Why are you kissing me?” And then he turns his head to Wedge. “You too. You kissed me. What’s going on?”

“I missed you,” Wedge says, in way of an answer. “And—” He falters.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Luke says. “But I think we might be able to figure it out together.” He leans across Tycho’s lap to take Wedge’s hand, and draws Wedge in for a brief kiss, completing the trio.

Tycho watches. He swallows low in his throat. “Okay.”


End file.
